I step over glowing green plants crisscrossing the hobbit trail. Sparkling water gushes from every opening along the bluff: a gift from hundreds of sinkholes higher on the Springfield plateau and now headed for Stockton Lake by way of the twisty Sac River.
The Oracle has put away her delicate ephemeral spring flowers and she watches over a riot of chlorophyll fueled fauna leaping out of the ground and staking out their claim before the heat and drought of August. I can’t find proper footing for my lawn chair and all my clattering and mumbling tells the Oracle something is wrong. She sends a butterfly and waits for me to hold forth.
…
She explained the forest around us is a complex, balanced ecosystem composed of a web of dependent relationships between plants, animals, fungi, geology and climate. Millions of independent actors live and work in this system that survives tornadoes, fires, droughts and biblical plagues. Ecosystems can thrive for eons until the arrival of the invaders.
Invading plants and animals spread with aggression and malice for those in the web: not because the system is weak, but because these intruders ignore cooperative interrelationships and the value of diversity. They leverage their single-minded strategy to capture shared resources and spread their genes at the expense of everyone else. Kudzu eats the South. Burmese pythons invade the everglades. Fire ants fill Texas pastures. Hog weed carpets corn fields. Multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle and poison hemlock crawl over the Ozarks.
These invasive newcomers shrink cooperation and resilience to a minimum,” she said. Invaders may release allelochemicals to poison native plants. Keystone species die; colors fade. Productivity and genetic diversity disappear. [2]
An Organic World
The kind of postmodernism I frequently argue for in these blogs is often called “organic.” [3] A part of the reason for using the word organic is that it implies a kind of logic and view of the world that is not mechanical, but rather organic in the sense that nature is organic. The modern world has been dominated by the idea that the world is like a gigantic machine built up of parts. The best way to understand how this machine works is to take everything apart (called reductionism in the parlance) to see how it works. Reductionism is, of course, diametrically opposite of what is called “wholism,” or the idea that we cannot understand a thing reductively but must also understand it wholistically.
When people indicate that we are entering a “postmodern world,” they say that the idea that we can understand the world by taking it apart doesn’t work. In fact, from quantum physics to environmental studies, it’s become a kind of buzzword notion that wholism characterizes reality. That is the say, matter how useful it may be to take things apart to see how they work, the fact is that the whole is very often greater than the parts. Just to give an example that might be relevant, if we were to have a nuclear disaster and thousands of years from now, people from another planet were to discover a brand, new automobile, they could take it apart all they wanted to, but in the end, it couldn’t really be understood unless they viewed it as a whole, as a machine designed to take people from one place to the other.
A second characteristic of any organic philosophy is that it is inherently historical. From quantum phenomena to the rise and fall of great nations, our world is fundamentally shaped by a history of events. Each moment is built upon previous moments. Each thing in the world is a part of an emergent process in which “decisions” are made. Once again, from the famous double slit experiment of quantum physics to the decisions of governments, the past must be taken into account, and that past limits current decisions.
While sometimes these previous moments may appear to be mechanically connected and flow in a predictable manner, this is not always the case. For example, at an atomic level, one can only statistically predict where an electron might be. There is an element of freedom or chance in how the subatomic world operates. The same principle applies to human society. There is always an element of freedom in how history unfolds. In this sense, in an organic ecological logic, the past both restricts our choices and opens up avenues for future growth.
Dan’s Helpful Narrative
Now, back to my friend. When I responded to his insightful article, I told him that I believed he exemplified a kind of organic logic. Logic is simply a way of understanding things—it’s a form of rationality. Whether we’re talking about mathematical logic, Aristotelian logic, symbolic logic, or the various forms of computer logic, logic is an orderly way of understanding reality. That doesn’t mean that it’s a way of predicting reality. It is at this very point that the modern world view begins to deteriorate. The world is simply not mechanical.
Dan’s article helps us see some of the factors that characterize the “logic” of organic systems. Among them, it seems to me that Dan mentions five:
- Independent Actors (Free Actors)
- Web of Dependent Relationships (Ecosystem)
- Thriving for Eons (Constant Adaptation)
- Value of Diversity (Multiple Actors)
- Invading Plants or Animals (External Forces)
It can be helpful to look at each one separately.
Independent Actors
It may be useful to note where modernity and postmodernity (often a form of hypermodern thinking) begin to differ—with the importance of the particular. Things have an independent reality, a reality that they can create and maintain. Modern science tends to examine and define these independent realities into smaller and smaller units (reductionism). But reductionism can only tell us a part of the story.
The “ephemeral spring flowers” of which Dan speaks will do. Here in Texas, we have a version of spring flowers called “bluebonnets,” which my wife particularly likes. They are specific things that need to be seen and respected for what they are. No matter how many of a particular there may be, each particular is in some way unique. Bluebonnets are a case in point. They are most beautiful and most commonly seen in great numbers along the roadside and in fields. From a distance, they look very much alike. Up close they are particular.
From subatomic particles to galaxies, things are what they are. This is particularly true of living things and especially of human beings. Each human being is unique and different carrying a different DNA (the carrier of uniqueness and historical determinism). For those of us of a religious bent, not only are human beings unique, but they are also infinitely valuable in their unique humanity.
Web of Dependent Relationships
The “ephemeral spring flowers” do not, however, exist without relationships with other things. The soil, surrounding plants, the sun, weather, and many factors determine what can and cannot be grow. My father grew roses in Springfield, Missouri, but in San Antonio, Texas, the roses my father grew cannot survive. The summer heat, the July and August drought, and the nature of the soil in the Texas Hill Country all make growing roses difficult in our part of the world. (There are a few breeds that do grow here, though I have had a hard time getting them to grow in my own yard.)
All of reality is like this: Everything is related to some degree or another to other things, and ultimately to everything. When we ignore that relationality, we create problems for ourselves and other parts of the common reality we all inhabit. This web of dependent relationships should also make us humble. It is very rare that any decisionmaker can foresee or understand all the relationships that can and may impact the results of a decision. This is especially true in human relationships, personal and social.
Value of Diversity
When I go see the person who manages my retirement, we often talk about the need for “diversification” in my portfolio. Smart investors are diversified in the companies and industries that make up their portfolios. Nature, and all of reality, is no different. There is strength in diversity. I no longer grow vegetables in my garden (too small and too hot) but it is always good to grow a diverse crop of plants. If in a summer there is a particular blight or infestation, and something does not grow well, other plants take up the slack.
A couple of summers ago, I planted three roses in the flower bed outside Kathy’s office window. It happened to be one of the driest summers San Antonio has ever experienced. We came home after a vacation to find that two of the three had died. Luckily, the cactus and other plants we had planted survived the summer.
Modernity, and especially what I may call “arrogant modernity,” is inclined to think it can predict what will work the best and demand uniformity. This is a big mistake. There is power as well as beauty in diversity.
Invading Plants and Animals
We have a small home out in the country. It is near a river, and we are very proud of the pecan trees on the property. Last summer, we took a long trip to Greece and Turkey following the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. When we returned, we were shocked to see that webworms had invaded our pecans, covering the entire property with their destructive ugliness. Fortunately, the arborist said the trees would recover, and they have. When I was young, Springfield had many beautiful elm trees. Then the Dutch Elm Disease invaded the town, and they all died. These are both examples of invasive destruction.
Nature is like that. Things do not last forever. There are invasive plants and animals, and there are also natural disasters. Millions of years ago, a meteor hit North America, and the mastodons went extinct as a result. Science tells us that the universe itself will not last forever. Either it will experience what they call the “Big Crunch” and collapse upon itself, or it will experience the “Big Inflation,” continuous expanding and descending into chaos.
Currently, one of the most invasive animals on the planet is the human race. We have finally, after millennia of trying, achieved a kind of mastery over nature. Today, our mastery of nature threatens our own existence. If we do not want to be the invasive cause of our own destruction, we need to find what ecologists call a more sustainable relationship between the human race and nature. Mother Earth, our home, depends on it.
Wise and Loving Stewardship
We cannot deny that humans influence nature. Our impact is unavoidable. What we can prevent is wasteful, excessively violent, or overuse of nature and its resources. This is not a matter of the political left or right getting its way. Years ago, I traveled in Russia. One would be hard-pressed to find a greater case of environmental abuse than that caused by the “master planners” of the Soviet state. On the other hand, Kathy and I have lived very close to a center of the refining industry, and we saw what it was like before modern environmental protection. It was not a pretty sight.
Ultimately, responsible stewardship of nature relies on the commitment and effort of all of us. We all make choices that impact our environment. This might seem like a minor example, but plastic water bottles and bottled water are a particular concern for me. Having traveled extensively, I can attest that you can’t go deep into the jungles of Africa without seeing how nature has been polluted by people dropping plastic water containers along roads or trails. In the central Pacific Ocean, a vast area is entirely covered with discarded plastic containers.
It’s hot in Texas, and I enjoy playing golf. I’ve learned to carry my own thermos and avoid buying water from the pro shop. Of course, sometimes I forget my water and end up buying a plastic bottle or two. It happens about once or twice each summer, but not every week. I’ve driven a small, fuel-efficient, and relatively safe car for many years. Its size helps conserve metal and plastic, and its good mileage saves gasoline. And guess what? I can go wherever I need to.
We all need to develop a different and better way of looking at the world, and Dan has given us a small glimpse of what that means.
Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved
[1] Dan Chiles, “The Oracle says, ‘Be True to Your School Even in the Face of Federal Pressure’” Springfield Daily Citizen (June 9, 2025).
[2] Id.
[3] See, A. N. Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York, NY: Free Press, 1929, 1957), at 90, Adventure of Ideas (New York, NY: Free Press, 1933), Modes of Thought (New York, NY: Free Press, 1938, 1968).